Hand tools, such as shovels and rakes, typically have two or more components such as a blade member and an elongate shaft member, which need to be attached together prior to sale and use of such implements. The blade and shaft members are usually affixed to each other using bolting or screwing and the like. Such requires the use of other tools, such as wrenches and/or screwdrivers, making assembly of such tool difficult or impossible if such wrenches and/or screwdrivers are not readily available.
Also, for reasons of lower manufacturing costs and ease of shipping and handling, it may be desired to provide a two or more component tool to a customer in dis-assembled or "knock-down" form, to allow for more efficient shipping and boxing of the tools from the place of manufacture. Upon delivery at a retail store, or upon purchase of such tool by a customer, assembly of such tool is then required. In such circumstances where retailers and customers are assembling tools from a kit or dis-assembled form, it is desirous for the assembly to require as few tools as possible and preferably no use of tools being required. Accordingly, for convenience to retail customers and the purchasing public, tool designs which require only manual assembly and no use of other tools are particularity desirable.
Tools adapted to allow manual assembly of a wooden shaft member to a blade member without the use of other tools are known. For example, Canadian Patent 1,261,125 (likewise to the within inventor Paul C. Aquilina) provides for a specially configured clip that is adapted for use in retaining a wooden shaft member to a blade member of a tool. The clip, particularity in the second embodiment shown in FIGS. 3-6 thereof, relies on an angled ramp 12 and a tongue 11 "digging into" the wooden shaft member 2 as a means of permitting the clip to retain the wooden shaft member coupled to the structural portion 5 of the tool.
Notably, however, due to growing shortages of wood and the increased expense of wood, and also due to the increased strength of metal as opposed to wood, it is increasingly common for tool manufacturers to utilize metal shafts for tools. Disadvantageously, however, existing designs which allow for manual assembly of a wood or steel shaft member to a blade member, such as the clip design taught in Canadian Patent 1,261,125 discussed above, are completely inoperable when a shaft that is substantially inpenetrable, such as metal, is employed. This is due to the inability of the clip member (usually of metal) to operate in the same manner as it does with wood, namely to "dig into" the shaft member to prevent disengagement with the blade member.
Accordingly, a real need exists for a kit, a tool itself, and a method for assembling such tool, to allow manual assembly of such tool where the shaft is of a substantially inpenetrable material, such as metal.